I exaggerate to make a point. This topic name does not exactly make you want to barricade the streets, does it? It makes you want to crawl under a desk and die of thirst.

People dehydrating under desks never solved anything.

The Republican gilded-age crowd did not get to where they presently are by rolling up in a ball. They've been on a long march since WWII ended. Or I guess, in their case, it's more like a long limo ride and the bar is empty. Well, everyone has their own hell.

The thing we lost when we went to post-modern nihilism was commitment. Political action seemed old, silly, too easy to deconstruct into a bunch of odd people wanting to die for words on a page that could just as easily decontextualize into gibberish.

I say "we" for a reason, because "they" never did that. They just kept slogging away. Suddenly, omg, the country blew up. No, it eroded and collapsed.

Maybe we gave up too much.

_________________"Our democratic institutions... seem to have been upended by frat-boy billionaires from California," remarked Canadian politician Charlie Angus. (BBC, 11/27/18)

I have said at least 100 times the REASON I say things like all rights are gone is to make the FUCKING POINT that NONE of this had to happen.

NONE of it, but the VERY actions that made it happen are repeating.

Brand New Congress...Justice Democrats...Our Revolution. John fucking Fugelsang today on Stephanie "Oh no, we have to offer something more than trump is a traitor, we have to run new progressive candidates"

When I hear that ASS spew that GARBAGE I tweet things to Stephanie to get her to push back at the ass, which she does on her own but not enough.

People ARE STILL going to support these groups that exist to DIVIDE Democrats. So MORE rights will be lost~

On a side note, the new GOP lie is rump is not a traitor because he is asking for NATO members to spend more on NATO, this is a lie, what he is asking is for them to pay more so WE dont have to, NOT to pay more in total.

___________________________________________________

p.s. I am the last on their list to harm or kill. I actually dont have to spend this much time on this both here and in real life, I am actually pretty fucking comfortable and am not in any minority category other than I am a patriot. I actually got a substantial tax CUT from the traitorous GOP tax bill, per my accountant (as a blue stater I am still not sure I believe this), so I dont need to hear that I am overstating things when I wonder if the SS Agent was murdered, or when I say all rights are gone as a way to WAKE people the fuck up. Fact is I dont care what people think about me personally because I am not the one being targeted, yet.

But people I love and care about both in real life, on the internet and in places I dont even know exist ARE in danger, right now, and more will be tomorrow. I said things TWO YEARS ago that finally now people are accepting. I can list them but again, this is NOT about me. I do this, or I SCREAM things like GOP prefers KGB to USA because I care and because it is true, even two years ago when I first said it, it was true. I allege years ago that republicans are not patriots and at their base are traitors, because they are. We just finally got to shove and I have been proven right. I dont want to wait until it is my rights or my house they are coming after before I SCREAM the alarm.

The very idea that some MAGA hat wearing, knuckledragging rump supporting fucking asshole would lay a FINGER on my CJ or any other of my Gay or Brown friends makes my fucking HEAD explode and I want to do something NOW to stop it. Open to more suggestions, too.

_________________"Corporate Democrat" phrase created at the same place "Angry Mob" was...People keep falling for rightwing talking points. How sad.

I think you overdo it, Lib, mostly to remind people of the importance of voting over apathy, and on the left, not letting purity voting cut off our nose to spite our face.

I usually see you asking for people to give you answers on what to do - not nihilism. Everybody has to make their own choices in this area. Direct action? If you think you can, and you want to, and you're not afraid of arrest if that's a possibility - well, do what you think is right. I'm for lawful protest and voting. I am not for violence, but I agree you can't have your head in the sand over assuming you won't ever face it, and then you need a plan of what you'll do about it. I'm not telling people to arm themselves, I still refuse to do it, I'm not going to sit in judgement of people making other decisions.

I agree with Zowie and Ike. This is a war. Not one we're fighting yet with guns and bombs. Yet. Call it culture war, the war of ideas, really in politics it's ultimately a war over power and control - I mean, that is what the public sphere is all about, ultimately. By inclination, I'll fight the war of ideas with tooth and nail. Good ideas need to be fought for, and I do not give a shit if I get called a nattering nabob for thinking so. But yes, even in this kind of war, I agree with Zowie, to win it, we've got to be cool, focused, keep our eyes on the goals we want and how to achieve them.

I agree with Zowie, you can't win without discipline. The prize is November and a legislative majority of Democrats who can, if not impeach Trump, AT LEAST keep him in check. Keep your eyes on that prize, and focus on what you can do to achieve it. Also, if we keep focused, we MIGHT - remains to be seen - postpone the vote on the next SCOTUS justice until after November, and things could change.

Thus endeth the sermon to my mutant troops.

_________________-- Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.Malaclypse the Younger

Your income tax may be down, depends, but the huge deficit increase and loss of safety net are going to cost everyone a bundle.

I'm pretty much in agreement with our wise (and very hip) professor. Both you guys are my people, and I love my people.

Stay angry, dial it down about 10 dB here, and go forth to the Mission Field energized by your strong feelings. Use the honey more than the vinegar. Get media savvy, and find places where you can stick wedges into cracks. Become a saboteur, but keep it legal/ smart/ fun like a college prank, or you're lost to the movement. Artfulness goes a long way on that one. Mercilessly hunt down social media bots and trolls, and quietly block/report them, while covertly getting everyone else in your network to do same. Make music and art, and be as happy as anyone can be in wartime.

--Edit to change one piece of advice after finding new facts with Google. I keep up.

_________________"Our democratic institutions... seem to have been upended by frat-boy billionaires from California," remarked Canadian politician Charlie Angus. (BBC, 11/27/18)

Last edited by ZoWie on Fri Jul 20, 2018 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think you overdo it, Lib, mostly to remind people of the importance of voting over apathy, and on the left, not letting purity voting cut off our nose to spite our face.

I usually see you asking for people to give you answers on what to do - not nihilism. Everybody has to make their own choices in this area. Direct action? If you think you can, and you want to, and you're not afraid of arrest if that's a possibility - well, do what you think is right. I'm for lawful protest and voting. I am not for violence, but I agree you can't have your head in the sand over assuming you won't ever face it, and then you need a plan of what you'll do about it. I'm not telling people to arm themselves, I still refuse to do it, I'm not going to sit in judgement of people making other decisions.

I agree with Zowie and Ike. This is a war. Not one we're fighting yet with guns and bombs. Yet. Call it culture war, the war of ideas, really in politics it's ultimately a war over power and control - I mean, that is what the public sphere is all about, ultimately. By inclination, I'll fight the war of ideas with tooth and nail. Good ideas need to be fought for, and I do not give a shit if I get called a nattering nabob for thinking so. But yes, even in this kind of war, I agree with Zowie, to win it, we've got to be cool, focused, keep our eyes on the goals we want and how to achieve them.

I agree with Zowie, you can't win without discipline. The prize is November and a legislative majority of Democrats who can, if not impeach Trump, AT LEAST keep him in check. Keep your eyes on that prize, and focus on what you can do to achieve it. Also, if we keep focused, we MIGHT - remains to be seen - postpone the vote on the next SCOTUS justice until after November, and things could change.

Thus endeth the sermon to my mutant troops.

I forgot to add they sure as FUCK better not touch my Jewish friends like the professor!

_________________"Corporate Democrat" phrase created at the same place "Angry Mob" was...People keep falling for rightwing talking points. How sad.

You got my great grandmother: mutha fuckas, you will not get me, at least not alive.

That's right, you have mentioned that before, your great grandmother. Sometimes I wonder why it makes me so angry, all of this, seemingly more angry than folks who have more direct reasons to be angry, and I think the reason is I just have no filter. I think most people are as angry as I am but know how to control it better.

_________________"Corporate Democrat" phrase created at the same place "Angry Mob" was...People keep falling for rightwing talking points. How sad.

_________________Socialism! That's that word that your politicians use that it's so nasty. Socialism. Other places just call it sharing. It's a good thing! You just share and give some to the less fortunate. -Fred Eaglesmith

I exaggerate to make a point. This topic name does not exactly make you want to barricade the streets, does it? It makes you want to crawl under a desk and die of thirst.

People dehydrating under desks never solved anything.

The Republican gilded-age crowd did not get to where they presently are by rolling up in a ball. They've been on a long march since WWII ended. Or I guess, in their case, it's more like a long limo ride and the bar is empty. Well, everyone has their own hell.

The thing we lost when we went to post-modern nihilism was commitment. Political action seemed old, silly, too easy to deconstruct into a bunch of odd people wanting to die for words on a page that could just as easily decontextualize into gibberish.

I say "we" for a reason, because "they" never did that. They just kept slogging away. Suddenly, omg, the country blew up. No, it eroded and collapsed.

Maybe we gave up too much.

we had a bit more representation back when reagan was president that protected us from some of the types of things happening now, we were able to attract that because we had a bit more of the national income, we also didnt have to compete so much for representation with businesses that we patronized. what we are feeling now is not increased threat but rather increased vulnerability.

Yeah, the fucking Holocaust. I wonder if I lost ancestors. Good possibility, but I never checked it out.

Now the damn kids blather about the ovens being hotter this time, and yes, they piss me off.

We are in this together, we are friends.

Dont think I haven't noticed your saying that to me several times here and your attempt to criticize me less and less (even though I make it hard on you and others with my very OVERT and obnoxious, by design, approach)

Not unnoticed and is appreciated.

Hey, maybe someday when I am in LA area we can have a coffee.

_________________"Corporate Democrat" phrase created at the same place "Angry Mob" was...People keep falling for rightwing talking points. How sad.

Was this inevitable? Of course not. We started on a path and at every point there are opportunities for decisions which includes not making a decision. The consequences of the chain of decisions are the results we have. Of course existing external and internal belief structures as well as institutionalized preexisting conditions can be used to funnel decisions and actions in a particular direction. What that direction is depends upon human psychological response.

Trump is symptomatic of the potential hard landing as opposed to soft landing. And his followers are partying in coach class while he flies the plane into the mountain.

_________________bird's theorem-"we the people" are stupid.

"No one is so foolish as to choose war over peace. In peace sons bury their fathers, in war fathers bury their sons." - Herodotus

_________________Who are these...flag-sucking halfwits fleeced fooled by stupid little rich kids They speak for all that is cruel stupidThey are racists hate mongers I piss down the throats of these Nazis Im too old to worry whether they like it Fuck them.HST.

Dont think I haven't noticed your saying that to me several times here and your attempt to criticize me less and less (even though I make it hard on you and others with my very OVERT and obnoxious, by design, approach)

Not unnoticed and is appreciated.

Hey, maybe someday when I am in LA area we can have a coffee.

I'm down.

Yes, it's very wearing, but you seem like a good guy with an interesting past, who got jammed into the machine sideways when all this shit started circa 2015. We'll make an activist out of you yet.

_________________"Our democratic institutions... seem to have been upended by frat-boy billionaires from California," remarked Canadian politician Charlie Angus. (BBC, 11/27/18)

At a time when our politics may seem bleak and hopeless, poet, peacemaker, minister, and scholar John Philip Newell offers us both encouragement and challenge:

We live in a moment of grace. Through the hedges of our divisions we are beginning to glimpse again the beauty of life’s oneness. We are beginning to hear, in a way that humanity has never heard before, the essential harmony that lies at the heart of the universe. And we are beginning to understand, amidst the horror and suffering of our divisions, that we will be well to the extent that we move back into relationship with one another, whether as individuals and families or as nations and species. . . .

[Newell reminds us of the Holocaust and how Germany, under Hitler’s command, murdered millions of Jews in Poland.] The German nation was not alone in this. Some of our worst inhumanities as nations, including Britain and America, have been perpetrated on foreign soil and kept at a distance, as if to hide from our own soul the sacrilege of what we are doing. . . . Something in our collective psyche has pretended that the families of another land are not as sacred as the sons and daughters of our own. . . .

Think of the hubris of our lives. Think of our individual arrogance, the way we pursue our own well-being at the neglect and even expense of [others]. . . . Think of the hubris of our nationhood, pretending that we could look after the safety of our homeland by ignoring and even violating the sovereignty of other lands. Think of the hubris of our religion, raising ourselves up over other wisdom traditions and even trying to force our ways on them. Think of the hubris of the human species, pretending that we could look after our own health while exploiting and endangering the life of other species. . . .

I created Bird's Theorem as a joke. Unfortunately, it isn't. It is not that all the people are stupid or that people are stupid all of the time. It is that being a citizen in a democratic republic requires time and effort. Far too many refuse to invest the time or effort. Add in the barrage of nonsense on anti-social media and outright lying by politicians and pundits and we are left with the mess we have. Not that it should bring us comfort but other countries have been in the same place at other times. We could learn by their example but we will choose not to. It is not determinism but rather the weight of our own history that seems to propel us down the path.

_________________bird's theorem-"we the people" are stupid.

"No one is so foolish as to choose war over peace. In peace sons bury their fathers, in war fathers bury their sons." - Herodotus

Determinism is often criticized in academic circles as being too narrow. I think chaos theory teaches us that some things can be expected but not predicted with any kind of certainty, and in politics some very odd behavior can come without warning. A few people who predicted it right will say told you so, and everyone will ignore them.

Indeed the weight that keeps the US on its current path is less economic than ethnic. The country never got over being a house divided on whether or not it was OK to capture human beings in Africa and sell the survivors of the Middle Passage as property in the slave states. There was never any attempt at truth and reconciliation.

Of course, along with Bird's Theorem, which is well on its way to being a law, there's the behavior identified in ZoWie's Law. In any given country, the number of total shitheads will average somewhere around 40%. Observation here, in France, in the UK, in Germany, and many other places has borne this out many times.

_________________"Our democratic institutions... seem to have been upended by frat-boy billionaires from California," remarked Canadian politician Charlie Angus. (BBC, 11/27/18)

I created Bird's Theorem as a joke. Unfortunately, it isn't. It is not that all the people are stupid or that people are stupid all of the time. It is that being a citizen in a democratic republic requires time and effort. Far too many refuse to invest the time or effort. Add in the barrage of nonsense on anti-social media and outright lying by politicians and pundits and we are left with the mess we have. Not that it should bring us comfort but other countries have been in the same place at other times. We could learn by their example but we will choose not to. It is not determinism but rather the weight of our own history that seems to propel us down the path.

probably not a coincidence that needing multiple jobs and extreme working hours to survive would result in less time and effort to be a citizen in a democratic republic. cant give what you dont have.

That's also why the voting lines are always the longest in parts of cities inhabited by these disadvantaged classes. They don't have the time, and as a voter suppression tactic it works very well to make democracy, rule by the people, into oligarchy, rule by a few.

_________________"Our democratic institutions... seem to have been upended by frat-boy billionaires from California," remarked Canadian politician Charlie Angus. (BBC, 11/27/18)

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 30 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum